Friday, March 02, 2007

"They do not like it, not one little bit."

The title quote is adapted from the hapless fish's catchcry in "The Cat in the Hat" which, after today's national read-aloud at school to celebrate The Cat's 50th birthday, is at the forefront of my (temporarily) feline brain.

Over on the TrekBBS, someone has once again claimed that, rather than JJ Abrams helm a young-Kirk-and-Spock-at-the-Academy Star Trek film, he should be revisiting "the carnage of the Earth-Romulan War, right before the birth of the Federation (circa 2156-60) and have the entire film be one huge sendoff for Captain Archer".

Well, I'm sure something like that was Paramount's intention for the first ST motion picture after seven successful years of "Star Trek: Enterprise" on TV. But it wasn't to be. For four years (before cancellation), the "Enterprise" telvision audience was miniscule compared even to "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager", and hardly a good starting point for a new set of films.

As someone who actually enjoyed "Enterprise" - and has enjoyed "Forbidden Planet", "Master and Commander", "Galaxy Quest", Daniel Craig in "Casino Royale", and JJ Abrams' "Lost", most of which have been mentioned in the TrekBBS posts as "good" entertainment - I am confident that the new ST film will be a critical and financial success.

I am utterly disappointed by some ST fans' incredibly negative attitude, so ready to quash any and all new ST production(s) before anything's even started filming. In the old days, they'd say it was 'cos Executive Producer of 18 years or so, Rick Berman, was still around at Paramount... But now, they reject new ST even without quoting that excuse. Whatever happened to IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations") and ST fans' famous positive outlook for the future?

You know, if I was sitting through episodes of "Lost" every week and coming out of them saying, "Well, that was crap", I could understand their hesitation and lack of faith, but "Lost" is consistently strong on acting, writing, directing, sets, storytelling strategies and use of interactive advertising (via its website). JJ Abrams, director of ST XI, knows what he's doing.

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About me

Otherwise known as "Therin of Andor", Ian McLean has had an active association with "Star Trek" and science fiction media fandom in Australia since 1980. Before then he was an avid fan of the "Batman" TV series (60s) and the Australian TV classic, "Number 96" (70s).